


To Goddamn Heroes

by SkartoArgento



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse), Resident Evil - All Media Types
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Christmas Giftfic, Dancing Lessons, Jake just pretends he's good, M/M, Mercenaries AU, small tiny mention of Leon, spending Christmas on a tropical island and burning stuff, they actually both suck at dancing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-03 14:00:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2853368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkartoArgento/pseuds/SkartoArgento
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jake and Sasha spend an unconventional Christmas on a tropical island.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Goddamn Heroes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aquarelle05](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aquarelle05/gifts).



> Aquarelle05 requested a fluffy Jake and Sasha fic for Christmas, and this one is... pretty fluffy. I hope, anyway. I tried to keep them IC as much as I could while still trying to make it a bit romantic.

To Goddamn Heroes

 

\----

 

Time no longer held much meaning for them. It slipped past in a haze of days, months – sometimes violently, sometimes pleasantly. They chased dawn in aeroplanes and hunted under the moon, but the seasons could flip within hours. Snow one day, and the excitement that came with tracking through it, then the next day burning under the sun when their prey fled over the ocean. It was no wonder he had forgotten.

 

\-----

 

Flames licked the azure sky, skimmed the fronds of arching palm trees. Smoke streamed above, as black as the hollow shell of house within the fire. In the sand at Sasha's feet, the head of a wooden owl stared with huge eyes. He turned it over. Ran a finger across the jagged stump. The body lay a few feet away, half-buried. Had he done that? A shame, but there was something so cathartic in such mindless destruction that he'd forgotten himself, let the plaga take the wheel for a few moments. It enjoyed it as much as he did.

 

He pelted the owl's head into the depths of the fire, and his flask thumped against his chest. Jake always thought it a great source of entertainment to call it his 'drinking necklace', but having it on missions grounded him. With the plaga, sometimes things drifted, like the sparks that flew up from the owl head and were carried up by the hot air. Dangerous sparks that could spread the fire across the rest of the island. A mile and a half of incineration wasn't impossible, but stretches of white sand ran like veins throughout the island – natural firebreaks if their little barbeque got out of control. Hopefully that wouldn't be the case. Magazine pages flipped in his memory, the way Irina's eyes lit up and her voice became breathy when she talked about how lovely it would be to visit one of the islands – _just like in the pictures, Sasha! –_ or to have enough money to buy one, to buy a house there –

 

_Well, you found the island, and you found the house._ Irina's voice was no longer excited in his memory. Just sad.  _And you're burning it down._

 

Not his island. Not his house. And he hadn't even started the fire. Jake had found boat fuel in a small shed and insisted on drenching the entire first floor with it after they'd finished destroying the place. A good idea as it turned out. Houses were harder to set on fire than they seemed.

 

When Viktor Gruue next visited his paradise holiday home, he'd find nothing more than ash and a note carved into one of the palms. When black market BOW dealers couldn't be killed they could at least be threatened. And Sasha had always found them to be cowards at heart.

 

Music soared over the roar of flames.

 

Sonorous piano notes rose in harmony with a violin, then fell to a lonely solo. Something classical, though he didn't recognise the piece of music itself. The plaga pulled its invisible strings, and he found himself tilting his face up like a wolf and sniffing the air. A thousand different scents reached him. The plaga gave him a little nudge, and he picked out the ones he knew. Alcohol. Lots of alcohol, by the smell of it. And Jake. What a surprise that he'd already found the drinks.

 

He followed his nose beyond the trees behind the house. Sand sifted under his feet, and gulls circled overhead like snowflakes caught in a hurricane. Their small speedboat bobbed and bumped in the dock. Piano made way for violin.

 

He found Jake in a glorified summerhouse with a glass in one hand and a vinyl record in the other. Bottles of rum and whiskey, grey with dust, lined the counter of a basic bar, and in one corner cues leaned against a pool table.

 

“Looks like old man Viktor has a clubhouse,” Jake said without looking at him. His gloved fingers flicked through a box of records. The record player itself looked heavy, and old. Maybe riding the edge of being antique. Could fetch them a good price if they were into looting. Jake swapped the records with a shrug. Flute replaced the violin. “I guess it's small for a black-market dealer, gonna be a shame to burn it down. Especially all the booze. Maybe when we get paid for this we can set up our own little bar. I get to pick the drinks, though. Don't trust you with the hard decisions. We should grab some from here, now I think about it.”

 

“If we had a bar you'd never leave it.” He strode to the opposite wall, ran his thumb over one of the planks. Pine. A lovely scent. He sighed and dropped his hand. “You shouldn't be drinking that anyway. You know the condition; it all –”

 

“-- Burns, yeah, I got it.” Jake's face twisted into a frown. “What's the point in being a merc if you can't have any goddamn _fun_? It's not like anyone would know.”

 

“That's not the point.” Through the window, a sudden breeze ruffled the palm fronds and tore at the flames that still blazed behind the trees. The scene felt unreal, as though he was watching it through a television screen.

 

_And you're burning it down._

 

Jake's hand on his shoulder startled him from the memory of Irina's voice. He turned and accepted the drink held out for him. Scotch. No ice, of course. It sluiced down his throat, but the alcohol didn't faze the plaga one bit. It took a lot to get drunk now, so much that it was barely worth it. He had to suffer through Jake's own slurrings and fumbling stone-cold sober. Not so much fun as it could have been.

 

Jake's hand went back on his shoulder, squeezed. “It's time for a celebration anyway.”

 

“What do you mean? Nothing disgusting, I hope.” He pulled a face, but a smile threatened to touch his lips.

 

“Nah.” Jake steered him back to the record player and poured himself another drink. “You were a little bit, uh...” he tapped the side of his head, “ _plagified_ to notice, but I was nosing around Viktor's kitchen. He had a nice calendar pinned up there. Lots of girls, not much clothes.”

 

“I'm sure 'plagafied' isn't a real word.”

 

“Anyway, it got me wondering about the date.” Jake paused and ran a hand over the stubble of his hair. “Last I checked it was November fifth. But that was a while ago. So I cranked up that little radio in the boat, fiddled with the buttons until I came on some news broadcast.”

 

The hand on his shoulder moved down to the small of his back. Jake leaned in close – personal space rules never really seemed to apply, whatever they were doing – and his eyes moved to Sasha's throat. The other hand came up, and slick leather brushed skin. Jake curled his fingers around the silver chain there, and drew out the flask from under Sasha's shirt. “So I'm thinking, nice beach, good fire –” the hand on his back moved down a little more “– _great_ company, what better way to celebrate Christmas?”

 

He started, and the flask jumped at the end of its chain. “Christmas?”

 

“December twenty-fifth, yep.”

 

“But Christmas for me is on the seventh of January.”

 

“Well _damn_.” Jake slid the flask over his head and unscrewed the top. “Looks like we're going to be having two parties then, aren't we?” The flask caught the light when Jake held it out to him. “Drink? We got plenty here, but I thought...” A frown again, and Jake's eyes went somewhere else. “I don't know what I thought.”

 

Sasha looped the chain around his hand. “It's all right,” he said, trying to sound nonchalant and failing terribly, “I miss him too.”

 

Jake hunched his shoulders and cleared his throat, muttered something that sounded like ' _goddamn hero.'_

 

Sasha raised the flask. “To the goddamn heroes then.”

 

The alcohol was a little more potent than in the bottles. The smell stung his nose in a way he enjoyed, and when he took a drink, it _burned._ He handed the flask back to Jake who nodded his head. “And to the bastards like us who do it for the money.”

 

The music stopped just as Jake finished swallowing. “Need to put something on that's a bit more modern,” he said, and his voice sounded tight, almost choked. It wasn't just from the drink. Jake flicked through the records a little faster, and Sasha wondered if he'd started playing them because they were about to be burned. Letting the world hear them one last time.

 

“Ah, how about this?” The thickness had gone, replaced by eagerness. Jake switched the records, and the player began to spin.

 

It wasn't the pop or jazz he had expected, but a slow waltz that waxed and waned in intensity. “Modern?”

 

“This is about the most modern thing in this box.” Jake tilted his head to the side, and smiled. “You want to?”

 

“To...?”

 

Jake grabbed his wrist. “Dance. What else?”

 

He resisted, but the gleam in Jake's eyes told him there was no point. “I'm not good at dancing.”

 

“So? No one around to see. Come on, babe, this isn't a one-man dance.”

 

“ _Don't_ call me that.” It wasn't some self-conscious fear, but the intimacy scared him sometimes. He sighed and let Jake take his hand. “Just don't pull me around.”

 

Jake's smile showed a good number of teeth. “Promise.”

 

To Jake's credit, there was no pulling or yanking. It was more like being steered while trying to keep his feet from tripping over each other. He tried to match Jake's fluid pace, but felt too much like a gangly monkey next to a panther. Was there ever a time he had seriously danced before? He would have with Irina at their wedding, and that thought was enough to make him stumble. “Easy,” Jake whispered, his arm supporting, “you'll get the hang of it. Want me to dip you?”

 

“How about _I_ dip _you?_ ”

 

A laugh was his answer. He clenched his jaw and stopped, pulled Jake close and then down. Jake's eyes went wide. His arms jerked up, caught around Sasha's neck. “Woah! Hey! I'm the lead here!”

 

He couldn't stop his own laugh. Jake's eyes narrowed, and he tried the same trick, but Sasha didn't give him a chance. When Jake tried to pull him close, Sasha met him halfway and refused to bend backwards. The dance became more of a grapple until Jake swung wide in a graceful arc, hooked a leg around one of Sasha's and forced him to dip backwards. Now it was Sasha's turn to flail and reach up in a panic. Jake peered down. The damn _smirk_ on him. “Relax. I got you.”

 

“Cheater.”

 

“It gets results.” Jake hauled him back up, but instead of leading them around the room again, he stood quietly with his chin on Sasha's shoulder their hands joined. Skin against leather. Even on a tropical island Jake wouldn't go without his gloves.

 

Breath blew hot against his ear. He listened to its slow rush while he rocked them back and forth. An easier sort of dance, though the music had stopped. Stubble rasped against his own, and it took a moment for him to realise Jake had kissed him. He didn't pull away.

 

“Merry Christmas, Sasha.” Jake kissed him again, the cheek this time. “I think I'll buy you dancing lessons.”

 

He tried a kiss of his own and liked the way it felt. “Why? Too lazy to teach me yourself?”

 

“Oh, that's it.” Jake pulled away, nudged Sasha's side. “Feet together, hand on my arm. That's it. I'll start on the right foot first, then we'll go to the side. Ready? One, two, three –”

 

When they finished, darkness had fallen and embers clung to the remains of the house. He lay with Jake in the still-warm sand and listened to the waves brush the shore. Perhaps past Christmases had faded like old photographs, or maybe his memory had changed them, but when Jake slipped their hands together under the stars, it felt like the best one he'd ever known.


End file.
